Although it may be a tad early for such a debate, the All-Star guard acknowledged his path to becoming an all-time great in his ever-brief twitter chat with rapper Meek Mill on Monday. Based on what Mr. Shaggy has done this season, there are plenty of reasons to feel optimistic about the matter.

From a statistical standpoint, Harden is currently fifth in the NBA in scoring, averaging 26.4 points on just 17.4 shot attempts, thanks to his league-best 9.9 attempts at the free throw line. Among the top 10 scorers, his true shooting percentage of .607 is bested only by LeBron James and Kevin Durant. Simply put, only two players are better and more efficient as a scorer than Harden, who is also averaging 1.9 steals, good for third overall (tied with five other players). It gets even better in February: